“Hell, no. I never would!” Ricky pulled his glasses off his shocked face, scratched his nose, and pushed his glasses back on.
Conner patted Ricky on his shoulder once or twice and straightened himself in his seat.
“Okay, fine,” Meehan said, laughing. “Calm down. It’s just a question. Let’s try another . . . ”
“Um, okay,” Ricky said, sounding uncertain.
“Were there any moments earlier in your life, Ricky, where you exhibited socially-unacceptable violence?”
“I don’t know. What do you mean ’unacceptable’?”
“Did you beat up a younger kid, for example. And were you unable to stop? Typically, your friends would have had to pull you off the other person.”
Ricky made a face of disgust. “No, no, never. That’s ghastly.”
“Okay, lets turn the tables then,” Meehan said, getting into it. “If you saw someone doing what I just described, how would you react? I’m not asking if you’d be a hero or anything. Just how would you react, emotionally?”
“With horror. Fear.”
“Okay. Lets go on. Let me think—oh! I got another one. Do you have fantasies about hurting people?”
“God, no! What kind of question is that?”
“Don’t worry, you’re batting a thousand,” Meehan said.
“For being a sociopath or not?” Ricky asked with a stammer.
“For being perfectly normal. You want another question or have you had enough?”
“I’m game, I think. Throw me another.”
“Were you beaten or sexually assaulted as a kid?”
“Jeezus, no! Okay, I think we’re done. I don’t want to know what the other questions are.”
“They are pretty much along the same lines.”
Sergeant Wilcox called down the hall to Meehan. “Got something for you.”
“Stay here,” Meehan said, motioning to the two boys. Her heels echoed up the hall as she walked away.
She met Wilcox halfway up the hall. “What’d’ya got?”
“Seems like the goons like to keep to familiar hunting grounds,” Wilcox said. “I called around. They still use the same safe houses that they were using the last time I had a run-in with them.”
“Really? That’s surprising. And dumb.”
“Right. I have the address here of the one that is currently ’occupied.’”
“Thanks so much, Brent.”
“My pleasure. And Gloria . . . ?”
“Yeah?” she said.
“Be careful.”
“You know I always am.”
“Yeah. Right. You want some uniforms to go with?”
“No thanks,” she said. “I’m not going in ’guns a-blazing.’ I just want a face-to-face. If it gets rough, I’ll call.”
“Fair enough. Keep me apprised.”
“Yes, sir. And thanks.”
Almira sat in a small gray room with no windows. It was mostly cinderblock walls except for two metal doors, rusty gray, on opposite sides of the rooms. Cameras were conspicuously place at all four corners.
She had been crying, but the tears had dried. Now, she was just pissed off. Still scared, mostly pissed.
She sat, chewing her lower lip. Her eyes searched for someone to blame, someone to take out all her anger and frustrations on.
The door creaked opened.
“Almira Fuerza? My name is Mr. Jacobs.”
Perfect, Almira thought. You’ll do.
“What the high holy hell am I doing here, you bastard,” Almira hollered. “I’m an American citizen! Or are you arresting every Latina in the USA on suspicion of being an illegal? When my mother finds out, you are fucked. My uncle was a veteran of the Gulf War! He died in action, a decorated hero!”
“Ms. Fuerza . . . please, calm down!”
“I’ll calm down when you let me out of this cave. When you tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“Okay, okay. You are here for your own protection,” Jacobs said, as if reciting from a cue card.
Almira laughed. “Oh, how stupid do you think I am?”
“Well, you get quite to the point, don’t you? I want to tell you why you’re here and what is going on.”
“I’m listening,” Almira said, squinting at him.
“As you may have already guessed, your friend, Ms. Gardener is also here. She’s on the other side of this building, under nurses’ care.”
“Who are you bastards?”
“We’re the good guys,” Jacobs monotoned in reply.
“So me and my best friend have been captured and held against our will by the good guys? Nice to know.” Almira sniffed and straightened her back. “So, the difference is the good guys wear suits and the bad guys wear, you know, head scarves.”
“Kaffiyeh.”
“What?”
“Head scarves. They’re called kaffiyeh.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Well, it’s a complicated world.”
“Only to people like you,” Almira said. “There’s good. There’s evil. Everything else is playing games with people’s lives for power and money. Wouldn’t you say?”
“Like I said, it’s complicated. There’s much more to the world than you understand.”
“I’m too young and naive, is that it?” Almira curled her lip.
“Perhaps.”
“Fuck you.”
Jacobs stood up and walked to the metal door. He knocked once and the door opened. “We’ll talk later, Almira. I’ll bring you something to eat in an hour. Any preference?”
“Yeah, shove it up your ass.”
Jacobs stepped out, and the sound of the bolt echoed in the empty room.
The air was colder now. The past few weeks had led deeper into winter, further from fall. The leaves were gone now, and things were gray, barren, and chilled. The sky itself had lost all its blue. An occasional dark cloud rolled by on its way to the lake region.
The world had come under a new plague, a new Black Death. But it was a plague without cause, without a starting point. Without a ’Patient Zero.’ People were dying in great, plague-like numbers across the globe, but from almost as many varied causes as there are people.
Scientists remained puzzled, governments at a loss, civilians shattered and without hope.
The end of the world, Armageddon Time, was surely upon the Earth now.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There Are Laws In This Country, Buster
Meehan pulled up in front of the destination Sergeant Wilcox had given her, with Ricky Martin and Conner Croyant in the backseat. This was completely against the rules, but she need their help.
The building appeared to be the home of just one more software startup. The generic-sounding name, Techs-AS, was written in generic-logo style on the sign out front. The door was glass, but with shades pulled. The windows in front were all bricked over with a modern effect as if done not for privacy but to make an architectural statement.
Detective Meehan drove further up and parked beyond the building and waited.
“What are we waiting for?” Ricky Martin asked, leaning forward from the back seat. “Shouldn’t we be busting in?”
“We are waiting to see what we see,” Meehan said. For a minute, there was a strained silence. “To see who goes in, who goes out,” the detective elaborated. “To see if the building is being watched. There could be others in cars just like ours, watching the building to see if ’infiltrators’—which in this case would be us—are preparing an invasion.”
“Well, are there?” Conner said, seated next to Ricky.
“No, not as far as I can see. We’ll wait five more minutes, in case whoever is watching is currently on a restroom break. Then we move.”
“Okay, we’re both ready,” Conner said.
“Not you guys. Just me.”
“Do you think that’s wise? What if there’s trouble?” Ricky said.
“I suspect there will be. Having you in there with me screwing it up won
’t help, believe it or not. I’m better off on my own, but thanks.”
“I don’t think that’s fair.”
“Or very nice,” Ricky added.
“Look, gentlemen. No offense, but you have no training; you could get hurt.”
“We don’t care,” Conner stated with authority.
“We care a little bit,” Ricky amended.
“Regardless, you don’t even have weapons. What’s your plan, call 911?”
“We could do that, we have iPhones!” Ricky offered, seizing on the option.
“I’ll go in,” Detective Meehan said sternly. “You wait here.”
Sighs of disappointment emanated from the back seat.
“Tell you what. If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes, you have my permission to call 911. Say ’officer down,’ and give this location.”
“We’ll do it,” Ricky chirped. “Um, but, where exactly are we?”
“Don’t worry. Give them my name. They know where I am.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t like it,” said Conner, “but okay, I guess.”
“Here we go,” said Meehan mostly to herself, ignoring the peanut gallery in the back seat.
The door opened, closed, and she was gone.
Conner and Ricky turned around to watch her walk away. As she walked up to the building, two rather large men approached out of nowhere and pressed themselves against her, one on each side. Ricky and Conner watched her struggle. The two men escorted her into the building like two tugboats guiding a steamship.
“Shit,” Conner said.
“I’m on it,” Ricky Martin said. He had his phone out and was wiggling his fingers, as if loosening them up for a piano solo.
“What are doing?”
“Getting ready to dial. Don’t want to make any costly mistakes.”
“Like what?”
“Like dialing 9-2-2, or 8-1-1. We’ll lose time if I have to explain over and over again to each person that picks up that I misdialed.”
“There is no such thing as 922.”
“You never know. It could get really bad.”
“Don’t be an idiot. Just tap 911.”
“I’m on it!”
“Oh, screw this,” Conner said, pushing against his door. It was locked and there was no apparent way to open it. He hopped into the front seat and was out the door in seconds.
Conner headed down the alley next to the building into which the detective had been forcibly escorted. There were no windows on this side of the building. Conner crouched and did a quick scan for closed circuit television cameras. He stopped counting when he reached twenty-two.
Meanwhile, Ricky Martin had misdialed 911 four times already in his panicked state and was in the process of dialing 5-5-5 for some reason when he, too, decided to make a run for it and join Conner in the alley.
“What’s the plan?” he said, puffing to a stop next to Conner.
“The plan is we’re going to be caught in about thirty seconds. There’s cameras everywhere.”
“We can’t get caught!” Ricky bawled. “They’ve got Flower and now the nice Mrs. Meehan.”
“Detective Meehan.”
“I’m just trying to be a gentleman,” Ricky said, deflated.
Conner stared at Ricky Martin as one eyebrow rose automatically.
“You’re right about one thing, though,” Conner said. “We cannot afford to get caught. Let’s get out of this alley and down the street. Maybe they’ll think we’re just a couple of kids fooling around.”
To emphasize his point, Conner stood up and high-fived Ricky. Then they both walked confidently out of the alley, arms around each other’s shoulders, heads thrown back, in an exaggerated impersonation of bon vivants.
Once they turned the corner, they ran as fast as they could. A drug store up ahead was open, so they bolted in.
“Okay, be cool,” Conner said. “Cameras in here, too. Let’s head to the pimple aisle.”
“Brilliant. Right behind you.”
Once in the aisle, they each picked up different acne cures. “Well, what do you know?” Conner said, gliding his finger along the list of ingredients of a large tube of cream. “Salicylic acid. Didn’t see that coming.” He glanced to the left and then to the right. “Okay, we need to get in there without being seen. Any ideas?”
“We could pretend we’re delivering something,” Ricky Martin whispered.
“Like what?”
Ricky looked around. “Pimple stuff?”
“Don’t be a dolt. Who orders pimple stuff to be delivered? No, I don’t think delivery makes sense.”
“Can I help you boys?” asked a stern man in a dark blue shirt with a red name badge. His skinny arms were covered with an abundance of black hair, something of which his scalp was in short supply.
“Um, no we’re good.”
Randy (according to his name tag) said nothing, but gave the two teens his best ’I’m watching you’ stare. Conner was unaffected by it, and Ricky was oblivious of it, so after a few seconds, Randy walked away, scowling.
“What if we do the old, ’we’re just students’ trick?” Conner whispered, putting the tube back on the shelf and picking up a plastic jar filled with cotton pads soaked in clear chemicals.
“Yes, I like that idea,” Ricky Martin said, smiling broadly. “That should work. That will work.”
“Good.”
“Um, Conner. One question, though,” Ricky Martin said.
“Shoot.”
“What exactly is the ’we’re just students’ trick?”
“Really?”
“Really what?”
Conner sighed. “We buy a couple of notebooks and pens here, got it?”
“Got it.”
“We go and knock on the door. Okay?”
“I’m with you so far,” Ricky said.
“Someone opens the door. We say, ’We’re just students,’ doing a paper on their business or something.”
“Right . . . ”
“Good. Let’s go pick out notebooks.”
“Um, Conner?”
“What now?”
“What if they don’t let us in?”
“Shit. You sometimes say the stupidest things—”
“You don’t have to be mean, Conner.”
“I was going to say: but this isn’t one of those times.”
“Awesome!” Ricky Martin pumped his fist in the air over his head.
“Yeah, well, if they don’t let us in, we’re screwed.”
“Yay! I mean, dammit!”
The two forlornly placed their acne products back on the shelves, their heads hanging in defeat.
“Too bad one of us wasn’t really, really sick,” Ricky Martin lamented. “Then they’d have to let us in. You know, to use the bathroom. To use a phone.”
Conner stared a Ricky and then cupped Ricky’s chubby face in his hands. “You, sir, are a genius.”
“What did I say?”
“Exactly the right fuckin’ thing, that’s all.”
Inside a darkened room, the beep-beep-beep of a heart monitor indicated that the patient in the bed next to it was doing well. Intravenous fluids seeped into the patient’s arm from the drip bag hanging from a pole connected to IV lines behind the electronic monitoring equipment.
The patient, eyes closed, breathing slow and steady, rested between clean sheets in the bed. A light blue blanket kept her warm in the chilly, concrete room.
Muffled voices drifted in from the other side of the door. A different set of beeps pinged into the room: a code being entered into the electronic lock.
The door swished open, and two men walked in, switching on the light as they did so. One carried a gun strapped to his side in a shoulder holster. The other carried a clipboard. Neither of them were doctors.
The one with the clipboard superficially examined the patient. He noted the readouts on all of the machines: pulse (BPM), body temperature, and the like. He scratched these numbers on the form on
his clipboard. Then he glanced up at the solution and as the man with the gun stood silently against the back wall, clipboard man flicked the bag with his thumb and forefinger. No bubbles, the liquid flowing well. He marked this down, too. Finally, he leaned over Flower and listened to her breathing. He opened each eye. He wrote it all down.
Clipboard man nodded to gun man, and they were gone—lights off, door locked.
The patient on the bed shuddered involuntarily, as if a ghost had passed by. Or a shadow. The device monitoring her heart emitted louder and faster beeps.
Flower’s eyes sprang open all at once. She gasped loudly as she lay in the dark, not comprehending a single thing.
The shadows of the night, the original things that go bump, were in clusters, groups, and single. Circling the globe like malevolent storms. The numbers of the Shadows had increased from forty to four hundred to now four hundred thousand. Shadows were everywhere, swooping into cars, bedrooms, ships, airplanes. Following people out walking, out running, sitting in their backyard, flying kites, site-seeing, watching movies. Heart attacks were happening everywhere. The amount of deaths were plague-like, bodies piling up in morgues and hospitals and, in some cases, on streets and sidewalks.
Authorities were unable to help, to do anything.
But Death was everywhere, and getting cockier. Staying behind after doing the killing, lingering in the vicinity. Stalling so as to watch the subsequent chaos, calamity, distress. Floating high above the catastrophe sometimes. Sometimes weaving through it, a deadly, proud disease.
This is why, and when, the Shadows of Death were beginning to be seen. Out of the corner of the eye. With a shudder and a sudden spin of the head. People were spying the Shadows. Telling other people. Reporting the sightings.
People knew now what they had longed suspected: these deaths were not natural. Although they might appear a part of nature, they were not. They were the result of a deliberate perpetrator, an evil force.
Now the evil had a face. Or, if not a face, a form. A shadowy form.
SHADOWS OF DEATH: Death Comes with Fury (and Dark Humor) To a Small Town South of Chicago Page 12
